MEETING STRANGE DOGS

While I was in Des Moines I witnessed an interesting situation. A man came into the Hospitality suite with his intact Doberman. Now. A lot of people bring dogs to watch the tack or the trucks, so some of these dogs are very sweet until you try to walk into their territory. This was a big, handsome, intact male Dobe and by his body language he was clearly an alpha dog. I was sitting in a chair. I said hello to him, rubbed his ears and when he seemed not very interested, let it go.
Susie went over and also talked to him, (he was on a leash) and he was less stand-offish with her.
One of the volunteers was seated behind a table in front of which the dog was standing, very alert. She stood, cooed at the dog, placed her hands on the table and leaned forward to talk to him. Immediately, he stiffened. I watched very carefully because the room was crowded. The volunteer continued to lean forward, looking directly at the dog who by then had began staring back, and cooed and gurgled at him.
Nothing in the dog's physical appearance suggested friendliness. Ears up, tail up, on toes, perfectly still, staring. And then I heard it., The very low, almost inaudible rumbles. Someone started to reach to pet the dog and I shook my head and said "Not now" and then told the volunteer to look away and sit down in a tone that left no room for argument. As soon as she broke her gaze the dog relaxed, and stopped growling.

Later I told her never to stare at a dog, particularly a dog like that. She had no clue. Absolutely stunned. No wonder people get bitten!

This little dog I never touched. She did not seem interested in being friends and I have been nailed by enough tiny dogs to be a bit wary.

I didn't get photos of the Cattle dogs, or the Swiss Mountain dog (who was a sweetie.)

There were two Corgis at least-- the other that I saw was a tri.
This was dinnertime the first day.
They said she never gets people food and she never stops trying, which made me think maybe she does. (Get people food) since the behavior should be extinguished if it is never rewarded.

I was also surprised at the number of horses whose owners were adamant that the horses never get treats-- not apples or carrots or peppermint (Horses have a sweet tooth.) I used to know a Saddlebred who drank Nehi Tropical Punch.

And of course, there was Flash.

                               The blur you see is Flash's tail.

HITCHING UP (more horse stuff)

The last day we were there, (at the 2010 World Percheron Congress) as evening approached, we had to move the car because the street on which we were parked, right by the hospitality suite, was also right outside one of the horse barns where Priefert harnessed their horses. You can (or someone can, certainly not I) harness the horses up in the barn but you cannot hitch them and drive them through the barn. It would be horribly dangerous, as, being horses, they DO now and then spook.
One Percheron spooking is a real handful. Having a team of anywhere from 2 to 8 horses spook (all it takes is one to start it) would be tragic.

So while I waited for Susie to appear, I began photographing the Priefert people hitching up:

This is the beginning. One of the wheel team horses has been harnessed and brought out. Now he is attached to the wagon. There are, of course, real names for every part of the harness and wagon but I am ignorant of what they are. I know what I THINK they are, but am not sure enough to write it down. The other horse will be hitched where the woman is standing.

In the meantime, while they wait for the second horse in the wheel team, the polishing and cleaning of both horse and harness and wagon continues, unabated. The amount of work that goes into hitching a team for show is mind-boggling. The attention to detail is essential. All this time these two are examing the harnesses, bridles, hitchings and wagon for broken or worn pieces, errors, things that might prove a disaster at a high trot in a ringful of other rigs. And it happens.

The first horse is hitched and you get a good look at how big and long this hitch is going to be. This is one horse.
By the time they are done, there will be 5 more.

Here comes Jason with the second wheel horse. He will lead him around the near horse and back him into place, then attach the tongue (I think that's what it is ) of the wagon to the harness and the harness to all the hooks and rings and clips and bits and pieces that keep everything in place.

Ok. Now we have the wheel team
attached to the wagon, and Jason, who will drive them, is in between fastening and checking the harnesses. I was hoping to watch all
six get hitched but about this time the Priefert people began giving the car (the little blue Prius in the photo)  "significant" looks. Susie would never, ever get in the way and we knew we were moving momentarily, out of their way.

Meanwhile, out came the second section for the next two horses. You can see by the length of the section exactly how long this hitch is going to be. There will be one more section after this one. Two horses hitched to this, and then two more in front. These are normal-sized adult male and female people. The horses make them look tiny...about now Susie came out and with some slick driving of her own, managed to get the car out of the way.

This is the Priefert six-horse-hitch in the ring, albeit a bad shot. This is how it looked all put together.

                     and this is what a team looks like from behind.

HOME AGAIN

I am back (not that you missed me) from the 2010 World Percheron Congress in Des Moines, Iowa. WOW!
I did not take any dogs along and while I missed them desperately they were better off at home. There were dogs there- Cattle dogs, Corgis, a Swiss Mountain dog, a long-haired Chihuahua, an alpha male Doberman I wouldn't have messed with (this is a story I will tell another time.): and ONE BASSET HOUND named--FLASH! Flash loved everyone, of course, but was kept well away from being underfoot. Some of the other dogs were probably horse-savvy but the first day we were there a cattle dog pup got his paw stepped on by a horse that probably weighed close to a ton. It was not a good place for a city dog.
Horses. Let me tell you!! These were all Percherons, black as coal or Dappled greys very few brown, almost none.

The world champion stallion stood 19 hands high (a hand is 4") at the withers, or shoulder. He weighed 2,442 pounds or thereabouts, I may have the last digit wrong but you get the idea. These are not Little People in the photos--these are grown men. Trust me, you do not walk one of these without thinking about it first, altho they are, for the most part, extremely gentle and sweet horses. Once they get into show-mode, it's another story, and besides, he's what he is-- breeding stock. And he knows it.

 This is how big the medium sized horses are. Look at his feet. I would walk through the barn and put my foot inside, completely, one hoofprint. The shoes they wear differ wildly, and I do not know enough to write about it. The horses who are used primarily in hitches have one kind, those with other jobs have different shoes. Farm horses have yet another kind. There were farm demonstrations, but the one I really wanted to see I forgot--it was last night and when we left, after the 8 hitch classes, it was already 10pm.
This is already a long blog.  But I want to say that I was there as a volunteer and we were up at 4:30 every morning and at the Hospitality Room by 6, Susie Spry and I.(There were many other volunteers, all over and helping in hospitality, but Susie and I opened the room every day and closed it down. ) By 6:45 the room was packed with horsepeople, who had already walked, watered and fed the horses, and those first two days it was FREEZING-- the wind whipping across the prairies from wherever and the temps plummeting. When I left home at 5 in the morning on Tues it was 71. When I got to Des Moines about noon, having battled winds that sent semis skittering across I-80 and rain, it was about 40, not counting windchill. People were ready for coffee! We closed the room at 3pm each day but I bailed and did a lot of photography.

This was bathtime. There was a room inside to bathe the horses as well, with warm water but it was always crowded the first couple of days.This horse was really fun to watch getting his bath. I couldn't tell whether he was thirsty or just curious. His ears are up, his face is relaxed even as he appears to be stepping away he really wasn't. The order of the photos is reversed and I think the water surprised him.

The real bathing room was

just inside the barn doors, altho there were three barns full of these horses. This grey is fairly small but not infrequently you saw grown men standing on kitchen ladders or stools to reach the tops of the horses backs, and their heads. One time, walking through the barn I saw a gelding chewing on the overhead stall beam. He was that tall.

FOUR ABREAST HITCH

ps. If you hate horses, skip the next few blogs.

TOMORROW

Tomorrow I leave DadPerson in charge and take off for the 2010 World Percheron Congress in Des Moines. My ever-faithful traveling companion, Cooper, will not be going. I have not told him this yet, but he sees the bags and is becoming suspicious. Hopeful, even.
He is afraid of normally-sized horses. I hate to think what meeting 800 Draft horses might do to him. We will be at the fairgrounds, I am told, from 6 in the morning until after 10pm. EVERY DAY.
I was going to make stuffed manicotti to take so Susie doesn't have to cook but I guess not. Transporting it, frozen, could be a real challenge.
So I am hoping to overwhelm the blog with photos of gorgeous horses and interesting people. I should take  some release forms. I will have to make them out. Hmm.

BITS AND PIECES

I got up at 6 this morning, fed the dogs and let them out and in. By 6:30 they had been in and out 3 times.

I finally locked the screen and shut the inner door which has become the sign that they are IN TO STAY at least for awhile.

A friend of mine sent me, simply because she does this, a heated mattress pad.

While it may fall short of being one of the seven great wonders of the world-- or is it eight-- it certainly became, in one night, my favorite household item. I sleep in a converted (not by much) garage (actually it is pretty nice as these things go and it does have a built in space heater that is very good.) Nevertheless when I wake up in the morning these days the temp is about 63 which, knowing people who consider that overly warm, it is cold for me. So last night I threw Conley off the bed (he growled at me because I took him off the bed and he got right back on and I removed him again and he resented it)
And I put the new mattress pad on and I plugged it in (that was the worst part, crawling under the bed in the thick dust--and when I crawled, finally, into bed MY FEET HIT WARMTH!!
Awesome.
The dogs usually get me up at 4 to go out and this morning I refused to get up and then went, mumbling, back to sleep. So thank you thankyou.

Next week I am leaving for the Percheron Congress in Des Moines, Iowa. DadPerson will be dogsitting, so I ask for kind thoughts and patience vibes for him, for he will CERTAINLY need it.

KAILEY

This is Kailey.
She was a stray.
She was adopted by my daughter and lived almost 17 years.
She was the smartest dog I have ever known, including my own.
She was funny, bright, bouncy, perpetually upbeat, protective and intuitive.
If it is possible to have a heart dog that is not your own, she was mine.

When she was excited, she made this strange, high-pitched keening noise. Her Bunny noise. EEeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

When she was excited she leaped straight up in the air, maybe 3 feet above the ground.

Kailey lived with us off and on over the years. Here she is with Mitchell (ATB) when he was but a pup. She put up with him but as you can see by the wide, gaping jaws, it was not always a happy group. She would not have dreamed of hurting him. But by the expression I see here, she is about to yap right in his ear, or grab whatever she is guarding and leave. She barked a LOT. But at night, walking the dogs, we followed her bright and bushy white rear end with her beautiful silver tail curled over her back. Despite the fact that she had the worst underbite I have ever seen, she was a beautiful girl.

One time a serviceman came to the door and opened it before I had a chance to get there. Stacey and Kailey were staying upstairs, the bottom of the stairs ends to the left of the door. The guy opened the door and Kailey let out a roar and leaped-- LEAPED-- From about halfway down the stairs to the door, roaring like a German Shepherd, all her teeth bared, all her hair up and hit the door as the serviceman fell backwards out of it and slammed it in her face.

Later we saw Kailey on walks, innumerable times, place herself in front of my daughter when Kailey thought there was a threat. She was the sweetest, funniest dog I have ever known, but by God, nobody was going to mess with my daughter.

This is a typical Kailey expression. A combination of  suspicion, gentleness and temporary acceptance.

One day when she was staying with us I thought it was very quiet outside and I opened the door in time to see her stepping through the fence. I called to her--"Cheese, cheeese"-- her most favorite thing. She wagged her tail, and gave me a look similar to this and----vanished. (We found her.)


She was patient with the puppies but not overly so. She lived here with Mitchell and my first Belgian, Quiller with no problem. Later her companions were Rottweilers, and that was fine too. She grew older. She became slightly deaf, arthritic, and slow. It was so sad. She was a wonderful girl.

This is Kailey. She is ATB now but I think of her often, and I wonder if there will ever be another like her. She was not my dog, but I loved her as if she were, and I miss her all the same.

WOODS WALK

Very early this morning I started thinking it would be a good day to take a walk in the woods. Whatever else is wrong with where we live, there is a  lot of green space. Just because we don't dare go into most of it, even on the trails with a big black dog, doesn't mean it isn't there.
However this morning I thought I would take the camera and go visit Thorn Creek Woods, where I have had some interesting interactions with deer in the past.

Alas, dogs are NOT allowed. This is Thorn Creek woods. There is a creek that runs through it and it extends for several miles beyond where the paths and trails go. I really was looking for deer. By the time I got there it was just daylight, but the real light had not penetrated yet. The leaves are turning and, as you can see have fallen, but there are still a lot left on the trees.
I tried very hard to be quiet. I was accompanied by some birds -- I am not good at identifying birds as you will learn, but these were clearly warning everyone that Evil was afoot. It was quite annoying. Even had they not been along, try as I might, I probably sounded like the Cavalry, with their thudding hooves and creaking leather, jingly spurs and bits (altho I do not think their spurs were the kind that jingled) and the occasional snort and whinny sounded to the silent Indians...

Anyway there were some interesting things along the way even without the deer.
And of course, I took photos of it all.
I am sparing you a great many. There were strange leaves and interesting mushrooms and a very few flowers left.





And this tree trunk.







Now I had taken the trail marked WOODLAND TRAIL 1 1/4 miles. I am old and I am fat and I have arthritis and I was going slow. I could hear, now and then, twigs popping. There were squirrels dropping nuts and of course my personal escort of screaming birds (I think they are woodpeckers.)

I crossed the Creek (I assume it is Thorn Creek) on this wonderful bridge. I don't know who built it but it looks like something a group of Basset Hounds would put together. There were still frogs in the creek, which fled with little "crrk" noises and a plop into the water, so they must have been on the bank. I looked, and of course, great outdoorswoman that I am, saw nothing...

Continued on the path in utter silence. Even the birds had abandoned me.

I was still being very cautious and quiet but my neck was starting to hurt from the weight of the camera (it is not small) and my hip was starting to hurt as well.
I had seen no deer sign on the path, but it is

very dry. When I was out in the spring it was wet and there were deer prints in the soil in spots and even  some deer poop but I saw nothing. A twig would snap off in the distance, or an acorn would crack into the ground from forty feet up. Nothing.
Squirrels laughed.

And I began thinking that I had taken the 2 mile trail. (I am not a hiker). I had one lens in a pocket and the other on the camera, my cell phone and the car keys. John was asleep when I left and I just left a note, but it didn't say where I was. And here I was, thirsty, needing to pee, with squirrels giggling and throwing acorns at me. They even sent a chipmunk to distract me and I sat immobile for five minutes, waiting for it to re-appear before I discovered that it had a whole network of hollow, fallen trees and was down the slope from me about a block away. I really kind of gave up. I had been standing in one spot, seriously, waiting for the chipmunk and I sighed and shifted the camera and started on, looking up--

And there it was. In the spring they are redder, easier to see. I watched it's tail as I sloooowly brought the camera up and focused and could see the tail slowly rising. I took the photo. I took two. The tail flicked up, the deer turned but slowly, flipped it's tail at me and slid off into the brush. I took three steps and another, smaller deer tail flashed behind me. There had been two. I don't know enough about deer to know when their antlers fall but this one had none.
After that there were no more deer at all. Well I take that back, I saw one more tail further down the path.

I managed to get back partway. I knew I was near the trail end when I saw the brick back of the church next door to the Nature Center. And then I saw the birds!

One of the woodpeckers that had been following me (I think) and warning all the woods that I was about. And.......................

The Thrush. I am not sure what kind of thrush it is. If anyone knows, please email me. I think it is a Hermit Thrush which I have seen out there before (my bird book had a marker there) and if it is and I have a positive ID, then it is a life bird. It may also be a Veery, or a Wood Thrush.

Here's a better one.
Let me know.
The dogs, Cooper especially, are not speaking to me. I went hiking without them. Ignoring me, they are out sunning..